Meeting
by the middle sorta sucks
Summary: Kirk goes to a bar and meets Pike there, starting off a new part to their relationship. Kirk deals with memories plaguing him and having somewhat of a thing for Spock at the same time that the Vulcan is dating Uhura. Sort of angsty but all in all somewhat of a romance, KirkxPike an' maybe a little KirkxSpock. Set after Star Trek 2009 and before Into Darkness.
1. We Often Meet in This Sort of Place

**(Set between Star Trek 2009 an' Into Darkness)**

* * *

Captain James T. Kirk was sitting at a bar encompassed by one of many establishments in San Francisco in the general vicinity of Starfleet Academy that both served alcohol and housed women (if that wasn't all of them, anyway). This particular venue was perhaps unique, though, in that it was one of the few not regularly frequented by cadets from the nearby Academy, Kirk excepted, maybe. He himself didn't come here often, actually, not really feeling the need to socialize with the locals of the city except perhaps when he felt like- _socializing _with them.

Kirk's eyes took another sweep of the room, reaffirming for him the fact that nobody here knew him, not personally, anyway. He was probably the most recognizable cadet as of late, after he had taken command of the _Enterprise _and such, so maybe someone here might recognize him. But nobody here _knew _him, anyway.

For this he was rather thankful because, at the current moment, Kirk didn't want to be talking to anyone, really, or anything of the like. In all honesty, all he really wanted to do was get drunk and forget things. There was a part of him that ached for space in the times that he wasn't busy with something or other, like right now- ached for empty skies and darkness and- unfamiliarity. Things unknown. This place couldn't come close to making him feel like that, but it did something for the desire, at least.

The things he wanted to forget- how he'd oh so nearly kissed his first officer on the mouth the other day before coming to his senses- there was Uhura, not to mention the fact that Spock _didn't _like him like that- and how he hadn't seen his mother or brother since before his "adventure" and missed them, how when he would sit like this at bars, sipping a drink of something, anything, his mind so often wandered to the incidents in which he'd come so close to dying. His mouth twitched into a nearly imperceptible, grim smile when he realized that this was happening just now, even. The cadet shook his head at himself, looked up again, took a drink from the glass he'd been holding with one hand. He was thinking too much.

Kirk eyed a girl sitting two stools down from him, then smiled at her when she looked back. He looked away for a moment and when he turned back he was watching her being led away by another woman. She had strong-looking hands, he decided. He sighed.

A shadow sat down on his other side, and Kirk took a sip of his drink so that he might surreptitiously glance to his left at the newcomer while doing so.

"Hey, Kirk." It was Pike.

Kirk found himself almost spitting what he'd just ingested back into the glass he held. The cadet and newly promoted captain turned in his seat slightly as to not be completely turned away from the admiral. He didn't entirely turn to face the older man full on, though. He wasn't, of course, feeling very... friendly.

Nevertheless, an almost forced smile stretched the captain's lips as he eyed Christopher Pike. "What're you doin' here, admiral? Don't have any official-type _work _to do...?"

Pike realized that his subordinate was already slightly drunk; enough to be more casual than was perhaps appropriate with him, although, outside the Academy, maybe it didn't matter as much. Kirk was definitely a little out of it, though. The admiral raised his eyebrows at the captain.

"Not today," he answered smoothly. He watched as Kirk took another drink, this one perhaps just a bit more sloppily done than the last. He eyed the blonde carefully, unconsciously examining him for signs of PTSD and such. "Kirk... is something going on?" he asked, his face suddenly softer. He moved to turn Kirk's stool more toward himself, brushing the cadet's thigh in the process. Did Kirk notice? He wasn't sure.

The younger man's eyes seemed to darken. For a moment he just looked at Pike, lips ever so slightly parted, as if he were on the verge of saying something but didn't know what. He opened his mouth and words started tumbling out. The admiral eyed Kirk's hands as he listened.

"I feel sort of... cheated," Kirk said slowly, not really knowing where he was going but starting there anyway. He didn't want to start talking about his _feelings _as if Pike were his counselor or something. But there was something inside of him that aimed to talk its way out of him, and as he took another drink from the glass and eyed his shoes with sudden, irrational interest, the something started talking again.

"See, if this really is an alternate reality, or whatever, from the 'real one', the one where I... knew my dad... why _does _it have to be like this?" He was still avoiding Pike's gaze, and running a hand through his hair, uncharacteristically anxious. The admiral noticed. "We- we save Earth, we blow up the bad guys, but everything, all the _shit _he did before... It's still all broken. And that's..." Kirk looked up finally. "You think... we could've fixed it?" Pike didn't say anything.

"I dunno..." Kirk muttered, a little frustrated. "I don't."

Pike found himself reaching for the cadet with a hesitant hand, meaning to touch his shoulder, suddenly thinking of the blonde's thighs and ending up with his fingers resting on Kirk's (admittedly muscular) arm. "Kirk..."

What was there to say? There weren't words that could fix the slight shakiness he felt holding onto the captain's arm- he'd learned, in classes, as a cadet, how one Starfleet officer might comfort another in times of grief. And yet, that didn't seem right.

Kirk's eyelashes fluttered and for a moment he shut his eyes entirely, suddenly weary, or maybe just realizing now that he had been all along. He opened his eyes, frowned just a little, took another drink. Almost gone. He contemplated asking for another.

Guessing this, Pike shook his head slightly in response to that thought. "Come on, Kirk, you look tired as hell. I'll take you back," he said, hand moving to the captain's as he, at the same time, dropped a few bills on the bar's counter. Kirk's fingers lingered on the empty glass he'd been holding before they caught empty air, and then the chill of night air as he and Pike stepped outside, the bar's door swinging closed behind them.

He didn't let go of Kirk's hand. The captain, more alert now, thought about this in the silence. It was dark, so nobody'd see. And what was there to see? But they were holding hands, and somehow it seemed like more than what it looked like, to him, anyway. He'd done this before with dozens of people but this was different, if not just slightly off, by a certain amount of degrees or something.

"Admiral," he said rather quietly, not turning his head. When Pike did so with a "Yes?", Kirk said nothing for a moment and then, with somewhat of a grin, "I swear you're the only man I know that I end up meeting so often outside of school, in places like that."

Pike snorted, releasing Kirk's hand as the prior moment passed. "Yeah, well..." Maybe he liked to keep tabs on the kid. Maybe he felt responsible for him, a little bit. Maybe it was something other than that. "As much as it might scare _me_, we might be a little alike, you and I. Kirk." He turned his head to look at the younger man, eyebrows raised again.

"Maybe." Kirk smiled too, his steps more of a jaunt now. "Maybe sometime we should just meet up on purpose or something." Smoothly, casually, he tossed out the bait, unconsciously holding his breath until the admiral answered. Pike slowed, almost stopping altogether.

"Are you asking me out, Kirk?" He opted to avoid any sort of awkward misunderstanding and, rather, just put it out there. He wasn't old enough to be the kid's father or anything (unless one stretched the idea just a bit)- but he wasn't a cadet, either, not nearly. This aside from the fact that Kirk _was _already a captain, and had matured substantially over the years he'd known the kid, especially most recently.

When he realized that he was actually considering it, he wanted to laugh at himself. Did he really want to become another one of Kirk's conquests- he, an admiral, a _man_, a man more than twenty years _older _than the captain?

He figured the look the cadet was giving him, it was the same thing he'd used to get countless other people into his bed or- wherever, anyway, but knowing this didn't deter Pike from being turned on by it. The admiral eyed his subordinate as if examining him for any noticeable faults he'd somehow missed over the years. There were none, of course.

"Okay," he said simply. Neither of them were moving anymore, except for Kirk, who moved a hand to touch Pike's grayish hair and then trace down the side of the admiral's face. The older man felt himself blushing at this, irrationally (because why would he do that? This was _Kirk._) He stepped back, anyway- they were just outside of the Academy, standing there, and there was no need to do anything that might attract any stray cadet's attention.

"You go get some rest, captain," he ordered, taking the smiling Kirk's wrist. He moved the blonde's hand from his face and then let go, aware of his breathing, and Kirk's, too.

"Aye, sir," Kirk answered with a small smirk, snapping to a lazy salute. The admiral resisted rolling his eyes and instead started toward the building that housed his quarters. He could feel the captain's eyes on his back, but he didn't turn. Pike just kept walking, his lips faintly turned up in what might have been a smile.

* * *

**This is the first thing I've written in a while that hasn't turned out suck-tastic so I'm sorta proud of it, but this is the first Star Trek fic I've really done so advice and such would be welcome) Or just harsh insults with hints of truth because why not, I suppose.**

**Thanks for reading bros)**


	2. Afternoon

Part of him felt this math class really should be irrelevant, but another part (one that sounded eerily like his first officer, come to think of it) heartlessly reminded Kirk of the class's necessities, especially aboard a starship. So the cadet forced himself to continue taking notes on his PADD, pounding out equations and formulas and vainly trying to be Vulcan about it all and failing. His teacher wasn't exactly stimulating, not on the eyes but on the _ears_, and he was sorely tempted to clap his hands to his ears just for a moment, at least. But he didn't.

He conjured up a mental image of the _Enterprise_'s engineering deck, attempting to pep himself up at least a little. He thought of machinery, complex instruments, water pipes and valves, Scottish accents. The last one got a smile out of him. This was why he was taking this god-awful math class- for the ship. For the crew.

Regardless of his feelings toward the subject, Kirk at least paid a fair amount of attention to the instructor, even raised his hand once or twice. But his mind traveled. Not even just to the girl seated next to him or to the indigo-skinned alien a few rows ahead (was he a guy? He looked like a guy. He was relatively attractive, anyway. For an alien.) but now from the ship itself to its crew. He pictured Chekov in this class; the kid had probably passed it with record grades a year before him, or something. He hadn't seen Uhura in a while- perhaps he ought to take a detour about her dormitory tomorrow on the way out to his morning classes. But if Spock was there, with her-

He- he wasn't _avoiding _the Vulcan, not really. For one thing, they didn't live anywhere near each other on campus; for another, the _Enterprise _hadn't had a mission for maybe a week or so. Not since they'd gone to survey that class-M planet in the Rysian system. It was normal, of course, for weeks to pass between missions for them; after all, a great number of the ship's crew were still cadets. He purposefully skirted around the fact that before this last mission he'd seen and interacted with Spock at least once a day, if not much more often than that. Spock was probably busy, as he was.

He also skirted the thought that he himself wasn't _that _busy.

The captain swore internally, or maybe audibly, but if it was the latter then it was at least a quiet couple of choice words. They had been so close, just sitting there in the back of the shuttlecraft, breathing hard, having _nearly _violated the Prime Directive again (but not quite) on another alien planet. Spock had been saying something about this, obviously miffed but not about to admit that he was annoyed, either, and Kirk had just stared, noticing the dark tint on the Vulcan's face, the way his lips moved when he spoke...

They probably would have actually kissed just then if Spock's hand hadn't suddenly, instinctively come down on Kirk's, nearly crushing half the captain's fingers. Bones had wanted to know how the hell his best friend had injured himself like that on a _surveillance mission_, but Kirk refused to tell him. He didn't want to talk about it. So the doctor had irritably, wordlessly bound up the captain's fingers, perhaps a bit too tightly. Kirk sighed soundlessly, recalling all of it. It was a mess. But it'd fix itself, eventually, he decided vainly. _Eventually. _

The bell rang and the rest of the cadets in the classroom were up before it had finished sounding, but Kirk lingered. When he did get up, he so slowly, casually, then tucked the PADD under his arm and walked out. Immaculate timing- Leonard McCoy was just now coming down the hall, a characteristic stormy expression clouding his face. The doctor's eyes were dark, annoyed.

"Dammit, Jim," he grumbled as the blonde stepped in next to him. "These first-year cadets are driving me mad..." He bit his lip, resisting a groan.

"Oh really?" Kirk grinned at his companion, eyebrows raised almost in a manner that could be considered "silly". Bones glared back.

"Think they know more than me with all their 'fancy new technology'... and they don't the first thing about treating a person with the _flu_!" The doctor groaned now anyway, frustrated. "Oh, but Jim- you aren't going anywhere later, right? I gotta do a practice medical exam for one of my classes."

"On _me_?"

Bones nodded grimly, ready to punch his friend in the arm if Kirk gave him another one of those suggestive_ looks_. (Their effectiveness was almost alarming, but nevermind that.) "Won't be the last time," he sighed, referring to his status as chief medical officer on the _Enterprise_. "Especially if we end up going on that five-year mission."

"Fair point, Bones," Kirk said cheerfully, matching the doctor's faster pace as they moved through the halls. "Have to pass, though- I've got a date tonight." He smiled again, this time not at his friend but almost unconsciously, it seemed. Odd, McCoy thought- something about that smile was different, somehow.

"What's up with your _face_?" he almost said, then opted not to and merely went, with a tilt of his head, "And who's the lucky lady today?"

Kirk wasn't blushing. That- that'd be irrational. And if he was, it was only slightly. Nevertheless, Bones stared.

The name popped gracefully out of Kirk's mouth, smoothly sliding past his lips, casual. It was anything but, though, the captain thought awkwardly for a moment as he eyed the classrooms cropping up on their right. Was that Sulu? Probably was- who else stayed after class to take care of the _plants_? Kirk looked back at Bones and almost laughed at his friend's face.

"You're going on a _date _with _Admiral Pike_?" McCoy echoed, really rather aghast. He stopped walking- he still had a late class to go to before dinner. Kirk kept going, only looking back to give his shocked friend a quick wink before turning the corner.

The doctor swore again, ducked his head and stepped inside the classroom. His best friend would never cease to amaze him, he decided.

.

The red light on the com in his and Bones' dorm room was blinking- recorded message. And since his roommate's parents only ever wanted to leave video messages for their son when he was absent from the room, Kirk already had a good idea of whose voice it would be on the machine. He thought of his mother and winced a little. Another person he hadn't really been _avoiding_, persay...

It wasn't that he didn't miss her; in fact, lately he missed her much more than he usually did, like he had been thinking about just the night before last, before Pike had walked in on him (and it had all gone to hell, somehow). He missed being on the ship when he wasn't, but home held its own appeal for him, too, although this was more of a pull of obligation than of passion. He loved his mother probably more than any other woman, any other _person_ on the planet. But talking to her brought back memories that lately burned the insides of his mind more often than warmed the area, no matter the reason. So he hadn't answered the com in a while- or, at least, had left the room entirely whenever there came a time she might call.

Sometimes he just erased the message. Today the cadet pressed a button and then feel heavily onto his bed, thinking, tense.

Words floated out of the machine and in through his ears, dancing their way into his brain. An absentminded thought occurred to him: his mother really did have a nice voice. It hurt to hear it, maybe, but at the same time that he flinched a small spark of comfort leaped into his chest and sort of spread out from there. Kirk tilted his head back, eyes on the ceiling but not seeing the cracks in it. He saw his mother, smiling down at him, even though she probably wouldn't be, seeing him right now, he thought.

Her hair looked nice.

He didn't notice when the voice cut out; maybe because he hadn't been listening all that closely or maybe because he was still hearing her talk to him, inside his head.

If only she hadn't married that _jerk_, if only George hadn't run away, if only_ he_ hadn't left her once and then left again upon joining Starfleet, disappearing just as he'd started to work things out for himself. Maybe then he wouldn't feel so guilty now, warily eyeing the com. No red lights blinking anymore, the message listened to and gone. In a day or two, when he was feeling more up to it, he'd call her back- when she wouldn't be able to detect the of notes in his voice and wouldn't get all concerned about him. In a day or two.

He found himself drifting off into a light sleep, lying there, and stayed like that for what was probably close to two hours. He only sat up when the door swished open and Bones walked in, just slightly less disgruntled than he had been before. The doctor looked and merely nodded at his friend, quiet. Kirk did likewise and stood up, shaking off the tiredness that had set over him as he stepped across the room to their compact shared bathroom.

.

Now donning jeans and a black turtleneck, not to mention slightly damp hair, Kirk exited the residence hall. He could feel the pulse of his blood moving in his chest, in the tips of his ears and fingers. He smiled slightly, in spite of himself, the captain in him noting the small bit of apprehension, nervousness, even, that he could feel building up inside. It was somewhat of a rare feeling for him; regarding mere dates and such, anyway. For the most part these sorts of things gave him a contented kind of feeling that lasted only until the next day, but this was more like how he felt stepping onto the_ Enterprise_'s bridge after a while away from her, how he felt on his first day at the Academy, on Mondays. Maybe it didn't make sense, and it wasn't exactly like that, this apprehension, but it was similar.

He was meeting Pike at another bar, though God knew why, considering the Academy's rules concerning fraternization and, well, alcohol. At least they were both legal, he considered.

Wrapped up in his thoughts, Kirk hardly noticed or appreciated the cool evening breeze coming in and pulling at his hair and clothes, nor did he notice anyone coming his way until he had walked right into them. Surprised, he still managed to look up at the other person with flirty lashes, somewhat of a gut reaction for him, anyway. But it wasn't a lovely Orion cadet that he had walked into or even the blue-skinned alien from his math class.

Spock didn't look much put off by having been collided with, persay, having been meaning to converse with Kirk just now anyway, but his face wasn't as blank as it might have been on another day. The Vulcan adjusted his shirt, then, after a moment, fixed his jacket, too, to hide the food stain on his torso (a consequence of no action of his own, of course, that had occurred during dinner). All the same, regarding the stain, he found it necessary to internally point out to himself that he'd run into two people today unintentionally. He ought to set aside for time for meditation...

But no matter to that, not now. Kirk was awkwardly apologizing and already moving to get away. Spock opted not to question the captain on his choice of attire and instead took hold of his friend's arm. His voiced sounded maybe a little more quiet than usual as he spoke Kirk's name.

"Yeah?"

Spock released the cadet's arm when Kirk turned, eyelashes fluttering again. Did he intentionally do that? Not that the Vulcan noticed it happening, or anything. It'd be unscientific not to, perhaps, he told himself. Nothing wrong with careful observation, especially when it came to his captain.

"It would seem that you are making attempts to avoid me, Captain," Spock said finally, now carefully eyeing the other man. Kirk was usually quite straightforward in his actions, but his friend had a feeling that this wasn't one of those times. So Spock watched.

When Kirk didn't answer immediately, Spock felt prompted to clarify, "I was wondering if perhaps I might amend this." The cadet still didn't appear to know what to say in reply, so Spock continued. "It would be redundant, of course, to apologize about injuring your hand as I already have. But-" His voice broke, almost imperceptibly, here. "-something tells me that this is not your... main concern, however..." A feeling far from frustration but still of the same unwanted brand infiltrated his thoughts. How to say it?

"I do not wish to emotionally compromise you with my mere presence, Captain," Spock ended up saying, his voice even. A rather unpleasant idea occurred to him, but he voiced it anyway. "Would you perhaps prefer that I ask for a transfer?"

Kirk finally answered at this, appearing to unfreeze. "A transfer? No, Spock, that won't be necessary. I was just... caught up in the moment, back there. Sorry if I weirded you out or anything." He didn't mention Uhura. The captain cast his first officer a convincing smile, albeit just a small one. Spock still sensed something off, though- Kirk's voice, maybe. He _sounded_ casual. But- he sounded like someone _else_ being casual.

Curious, he thought.

The Vulcan nodded formally in answer to Kirk's words, somewhat appeased, at least. "I'm fine, Captain. Thank you." He disappeared quickly, and it was only then that it occurred to him that the captain hadn't corrected him and said "Call me Jim, not captain." His back was to the setting sun that Kirk now faced. The cadet glanced back at the loping alien, then started walking himself, again.

He wasn't sure if he was intentionally keeping his mind empty as it was now or if it had just happened, but Kirk didn't mind. As he strode off of the Academy campus, he thought of Pike.

* * *

**So I ended up starting the next part today and I guess this is gonna go on for a while longer, although God knows if it'll be just the two more chapters I have planned or more than that) Next part'll be more humorous, although still a lil' angsty) **

**Thanks for reading)**


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